Immortal Souls

Olton Broads Boat Yard Summer of 1999. The fleeing, descending, nymph was lost. She was searching, darting, and diving, first this way and then that. Time was running out. She and she alone knew who she was, or what she was. Or from whence she came. She had to find somewhere to take refuge, the dark was good. Yes, and so was the wood. The wood and the dark, she could almost hide away forever. Below her the river was cold and dark, it also lacked the shelter, she so craved, and the sanctuary she so badly needed. Boats were now appearing moored along the sides of the river, straining at their mooring ropes. She now slowed her darting, her diving, she could find not one moored boat with an entrance. She had to keep on looking. Then she saw it, set back from the river bank in dry dock was the half built hull which would become, in twelve months time, the boat that would go by the name of ’Pretty Emmylou.’